


sitting, waiting, wishing

by halfwheeze



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, HYDRA Trash Party, Ivan's Girls, Red Room (Marvel), The Black Widow Program
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21696214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: Natalia Romanova met her soulmate when she was nine years old. She didn’t say a single word, didn’t even react; she wasn’t sure which one of them would be killed if the Red Room had any idea of their connection, and as much as she would rather it have been her, her lack of surety was enough to have her swaying.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 6
Kudos: 122





	sitting, waiting, wishing

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at Buckynat so I hope you guys like it! 
> 
> Had two prompts - “I’ve been waiting all my life for you.” and "How could I ever forget you?" 
> 
> Combined them! 
> 
> Enjoy!

Natalia Romanova met her soulmate when she was nine years old. She didn’t say a single word, didn’t even react; she wasn’t sure which one of them would be killed if the Red Room had any idea of their connection, and as much as she would rather it have been her, her lack of surety was enough to have her swaying.

They were already working on making more Winter Soldiers anyway.

Her Yasha speaks to her slowly when she’s young, barely able to keep coherent sentences sliding between his teeth with all that they have stolen the words right out of his mouth. His Russian is slanted, like he speaks a different tongue first and hers second, but she doesn’t mind. It’s calming in a way things shouldn’t have to be for a young Widow, and a Widow she will be. Yasha watches her kill a man - not her first - and still does not think she is a monster. Or, perhaps they are monsters together. Perhaps he is the perfect kind of monster to wrap around her own and create something safe. Perhaps that is the only kind of soulmate someone like her is meant to have. 

She does not always see him. The first time, she was nine. She does not see him again until she is fifteen, until she has killed her own kind with her own hands and shed no tears over it, only more blood, and Yasha still understands her. He is more vacant again, but he still knows her. 

_“How could I ever forget about you, little spider?”_

He, even as he is more parts monster than they have made her yet, treats her like spun glass. He is careful when she needs it and harsh when she demands it, and she doesn’t see him again until she’s twenty. She feels empty without him, but she feels empty anyway because she _is_ empty. Of course she is. 

She spends a week with him before he’s gone again. 

She does not miss him. She cannot afford to. She begins being called Natasha and moves on. 

When she’s twenty-five, she thinks, a man named Clint Barton is assigned to end her life. She knows that he is coming for her, but she does not avoid him nearly so much as she should. She’s very tired for such a young woman, shopkeepers in the village she’s staying in will say, smiling at her beatifically and giving her discounts on produce that she has not earned. She smiles back anyway, an engineered sort of thing that no spy would believe in, and she waits for Clint Barton to find her. 

He is not what she is expecting. 

Once, she had thought all good men were like Yasha. Clint Barton is nothing like Yasha, but he is still a good man. 

“Your clothes are soaked, Widow, let’s get you inside,” Clint Barton says, dusting snow off of her shoulders as if it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, touching a Black Widow. The Hawkeye is perhaps two years her senior, old enough to have an expectation of rational thought leveled onto his shoulders, but still no evidence of such a pattern of behavior. Natasha narrows her eyes but allows herself to be guided into a safe house that has appeared rundown this entire time, but enters into something quite high tech for the small village. Clint Barton sets her down on a couch that is likely older than she is before offering her some of his own clothing, as much as it will hang off of her frame. She is likely a foot shorter than Clint Barton. 

It does not appear to matter. 

Clint Barton does not kill her. He does not torture her for information she does not have, he does not take her anywhere without her consent, he doesn’t even knock her out to force her into silence. Natasha feels strangely and suddenly out of her depth when introduced to Nick Fury, Phil Coulson and Maria Hill, but they do not appear to dislike her. They fear what she can do, and they are irritated with Clint Barton for bringing her in (and she would kill them for harming even a single hair on his head, she would swear fealty of it), but they do not dislike her. Phil Coulson gets creases around his eyes and welcomes her into the _field kids,_ as if that is something that sounds remotely legitimate. 

Natasha Romanov makes her first family out of international spies. 

She thinks it might be Yasha that tries to kill her when she’s twenty seven, but she isn’t able to get close enough to check. 

Her second family comes in the form of superheroes, which is so wildly unexpected that it’s almost expected at this point. Clint is with a super villain, not by his own consent, and Natasha is going to burn Loki to death _slowly,_ and only if no one can convince her that he needs to be kept in a box for the rest of his unnaturally long life. When she gets Clint back, she doesn’t let him out of her sight for weeks, too afraid of watching him fade away like Yasha did or getting him taken away like Phil or letting him become distant like Nick or add a layer of professionalism like Maria. Tony Stark is her friend, suddenly and violently, because he does not know how to do anything with subtlety. 

Natasha likes that about him. 

When Steve needs to find Bucky Barnes, Natasha ignores the twinges of familiarity. It does not matter that Steve’s Bucky could be her Yasha, because she will not take things from people anymore. She is no longer a thief, a destroyer of things, and Steve needs his friend more than she has ever need a soulmate. Widows need for nothing. Natasha Romanov needs for nothing. 

Sam Wilson puts an arm around her shoulders when Steve reunites with Bucky Barnes like he knows the pull of heartstrings she feels. She does not reach out for her Yasha. Even if that is exactly who Bucky Barnes is. 

Instead, she waits for months. They find Bucky Barnes again and again and again and eventually they bring him in as a team. Steve brings home his best friend to his soulmate and their friends and everything is merry, but Natasha stays away. She goes to Bed-Stuy with Clint and Sam and stays for a while, hiding between their broad shoulders and letting Lucky lay in her lap. It’s okay that Yasha doesn’t remember her. 

Widows are not meant to have soulmates. Widows are not meant to have children. Widows are not meant to connect. 

She sits with Clint and Sam and finds another family in an apartment complex in the shittiest part of Brooklyn with Kate Bishop sitting back against Natasha’s knees as they watch Dog Cops. 

Yasha comes to find her eventually. She doesn’t remember how long it has been, but he’s cut his hair. It looks almost so long as it did when he was her Yasha as a child, but it does not matter. 

“Barnes,” she greets him at the front door of the apartment she shares with Clint, standing in the way of the other inhabitants seeing Barnes or Barnes seeing very well in. He looks at her with consternation, as if she is causing him an equal amount of confusion and concern. She levels back a look that isn’t much of anything at all. 

“Natalia,” Barnes says like he’s trying it out in his mouth. Natasha feels herself pull tight like one of Clint’s bowstrings, and she waits for the arrow to fly and the string to snap back against her forearm, giving her a welt the size of a softball. Nothing comes without consequences.

“I’ve been waiting all my life for you,” Barnes says after his requisite beats of silence, which makes Natasha still even more. 

“Oh?” she asks, willing herself not to shake. Widows have no soulmates. Widows have no weaknesses. Her Yasha looks at her with eyes that have always pierced her clean through. 

“How could I ever forget you, little spider?” he asks, this time in English, and the accent makes so much more sense without the ax of Russian cleaving through it. She blinks at him, feeling her eyes grow wet for the first time since Clint got back, and she does not stop him when he pulls her into his arms. She does not stop him when he pulls her close. 

“Yasha,” she whispers, arms resting around his neck like a necklace, like a scarf, like a noose. She is a killing thing. Yasha only pulls her closer. 

“I’m here, Talia,” he says back, and he is. He’s here. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys liked it! 
> 
> Prompt me @primekent on tumblr!


End file.
